Know Thyself, Know Thy Enemy [Lynn]

[Fabula Caromed]

- F -

Months away seemed to have done very little to stall out the perpetual motion engine that was the bizarre chemistry of Fabula and Lynn. The first night together had been...interesting, as Fabs seemed to have a bit of a short memory as far as intimacy went. However, waking up in someone else's arms hadn't changed. It was still a blissful feeling, a sensation unto heaven.

Unfortunately, both of them were early risers. As much as it was spectacular to have some time to themselves, eventually Fabula's drive won out over her ability to cuddle, and she decided to wander outside to train in the morning sun.

Loose pants and a tightly-wrapped white cloth to keep her chest under control offered her enough mobility to get a proper grasp on her stances, transitions, and movements. She didn't much mind the lack of modesty; no one would find them here, and there was no part of her body that Lynn didn't already know quite well.

Every movement, slow and gradual, served as a conduit for the Force. Each stance she assumed turned her into a lightning rod of her own internal reservoir of energy. It wasn't the forms themselves that was most important, though they certainly helped.

No, it was the intent behind them, the personal drive to be the absolute best that she could be. Not the best a woman could be, or the best a human could be; the best that Fabula Cavataio could be, and nothing less. Not punching through a board, or jumping over a hedge, but transcending beyond that. Form and function blended into a single, perfect whole. Nothing less would be acceptable.

And, naturally, that left her quite distracted when Lynn finally decided to find out what the buggery Fabs was doing.

- L -

Not that it was any real mystery. One didn't involve herself with a perfect engine of destruction without becoming used to the ways and methods that engine kept itself well-tuned. When Fabula woke up and busied herself, Lynn had allowed herself a couple more minutes of blissful sleep before It began commanding her to stop being so lazy. As It always won, this morning was no exception.

Lynn didn't mind much. This little getaway they'd found on a relatively untouched planet offered a stunning view in every direction. An ancient hardwood forest that might continue forever in every direction - save the south, where it melted away to a beach. Clean air and a flawless sunrise were reasons enough to be here, but Fabula's form highlighted by the rising sun was more than enough reason to get out of bed.

In tight shorts and a simple white top, Lynn took a long moment to appreciate the offered view before stifling a yawn and striding quietly up beside the Dathomari woman. Wordlessly, she went through her own forms - mirroring Fabula's stances and katas, feeling her muscles and joints awaken from a long night of sleep.


- F -

Ah, Lynn. Fabs' muscles almost gave out just by -seeing- her, let alone watching her join in the exercises they'd devised together. If she didn't worry about setting a proper example, she'd be content just to watch Lynn in motion for hours. Days. The idea was enough to set her heart aflutter.

But she didn't have that luxury. So instead, she stretched out. One arm coiled back in a tight flex, opposite arm and leg forward and tensed. She stood in position for a long moment, then looked over to see Lynn and make sure she was properly formed.

Well...she was -obviously- well-formed. But also that.

- L -

Fabula Cavataio was very capable in the ways of the Force - no sapient being could doubt that, with even a cursory knowledge of the woman and what she'd done. Lynn wasn't. Sure, she might be able to make something of herself in an Academy with a decade or so of training, but she was too divided to be a Knight of either side of the spectrum - too familiar with killing to be a Jedi, too principled and controlled to be a Sith. So she hadn't.

Lynn Caromed had killed for a long time, in a great many ways. Granted, her weapons of choice were twin blades, but her body was sharpened just as readily. She took a half-step back and slowly extended her arms over her head. They were brought in, taut and tense, with a breath.

A moment to appreciate the hair-trigger readiness of her body, it's stretching and warming up complete.

And then, motion.

Lynn spun in place and whipped her leg up in a mocha blur, just over Fabula's head: a warning shot. A fighter did not become good at fighting by doing slow poses - they needed to test themselves against worthy opponents. A kick would be as clear a green light as anything else, and Lynn's next spin-kick aimed itself at her lover's midsection.

- F -

There are eddies in the Force, moments and movements that no mortal word can describe. Often, scholars attempt to use the term "ripples," but there is no mass to it. A single sensation, a solitary "ripple," can often say more about how one should react than decades of training. Such awareness came in handy when one's opponent was -already- tensed from stretches.

Fabula easily ducked the first kick, feeling the wind rush past her head as her hair whipped about on Lynn's leg. It probably could've given her quite the bruise if it had landed and also if Fabula's skin wasn't bulletproof and self-repairing. A single quick motion put her out of the way, but also left her vulnerable to Lynn's follow-up.

Rather than attempt to avoid it again, Fabs brought her hand down to grip Lynn's ankle just a bit tightly. Not enough to hurt, but enough to stop her still. It was hard to limit her strength so as not to seriously injure her lover, and as such she didn't have a strong enough grip to prevent the other woman from moving.

She did, however, have a strong enough grip to sling her ebony amazon's leg upwards, forcing her into a non-consensual backflip. Fabula quickly took a step back and reset her stance, toughening her flesh to make it less dangerous for the Mandalorian to go all-out. "Second kick was a predictable follow-through. Concentrate on your mix-up."

- L -

"The second kick was a courtesy. You rely on the Force too much - without it, we'd be worth ten of you." Lynn replied blandly, momentarily forgetting that she was one being. That tended to happen. She was more focused on things that weren't not being crazy. Like smoothly landing on her feet in a tight brawler's stance, her hands up and in loose fists.

Like judging her girlfriend's stance. Pondering her next move. It didn't take long - Lynn had been fighting and killing her adult life, after all. Sure, the ripples and acrobatics were a new thing, but Mandolorians were nothing of not proficient in picking up new toys and adding them to a burgeoning arsenal. Ask your Mando friend how many secret bombs and flamethrowers he carries sometime.

No, Lynn was fairly confident that Fabula's edge (and it was an impressive edge) was the Force, and little else. Once she caught up in her proficiency with mystical energy, she'd be able to disabuse Fabula of the notion that she wasn't capable of fighting both their battles on her behalf. That was Lynn's plan, anyway.

She lunged forward, sending a flurry of tight jabs at Fabula's sternum and jaw, temples and nose. "Tighten... your martial skill! You're a sloppy fighter! No finesse!" Lynn replied pointedly, bobbing and weaving like a champion boxer, harrying Fabula's defenses.

- F -

What she lacked in finesse, Fabula made up for in the ability to feel the future and superhuman speed. Her blocks were rudimentary, even ugly, but not a single blow got through. As Lynn's fists came close to coming into contact with the Dathomiri's face, her forearms were simply there, in the way, and far too capable of taking punishment.

Unfortunately, Lynn was right. She had no form at all, apart from the seemingly random stances she assumed to channel her energy. Not a single blow got through, but when Fabula made her counterattack, it was telegraphed and uncoordinated...

And came at about Mach III.

Fabs hoped beyond hope that simple velocity couldn't cause bone fractures, because the little hopping overhead kick that she slung towards Lynn's face. There was no name for it, no theory behind it. She simply waved her foot in the air -REALLY- fast.

When she landed, her expression was just a little pouty. "I know I'm not much of a fighter. But the Force is a greater ally than any mortal martial art." She set back into her stance, hands up close to her face but in no proper form. "If you'd embrace that instead of fighting it, you would be a much greater fighter than me, Lynn."

- L -

If Fabula had sent a punch or a smaller kick that didn't require every muscle in her body to react before it could be sent, this would have been a much shorter post, ending with Lynn's body broken and bleeding under the force of a single blow. Thankfully, Lynn saw the attack coming, and slid to Fabula's left - preventing that same leg from adjusting trajectory and coming for her.

"We have been working on it." Lynn promised. "But it is a temperamental and finicky tool, and I don't like it. A weapon should respond to it's wielder's will - not be defined by and reactionary to it." She took a half-step back, shaking out her hand from the stiffness that'd come from punching a rock-hard woman's forearms. "That is why we're doing this together, isn't it?"

"I learn how to move with your Force - and you learn how to fight!" Lynn darted in again, closing the distance between them - to make whistling kicks harder to pull off. "Tuck in your guard - always defend your face! And tighten your profile, so you present less of a target!" She barked instructions, hands flashing in a series of open-handed and non-lethal (to even a normal human) strikes. Her elbows, however, were the punchline to half of these 'jokes', sharp and hard as steel, driven for the vulnerable throat, eyes and breasts.

- F -

Fabula tried in earnest to actually follow Lynn's advice. When she closed in, Fabula kept her hands over her face and pulled her arms in tight...er. She was still wide and sloppy. And now she couldn't react as fast. It was only through fortune of what Lynn was aiming at that she was able to defend herself with such a tight form.

Fortunately, she didn't really need to defend herself much. The Force pulsed through her like a trillion oscillations of infinite energy. Each blow she took was little more than a thump on her skin, and the elbow strike to her face quite fortunately grazed across her eyebrow to do little more than turn her head a few inches to the side.

Her eye winced for a moment before she pulled back her body to give two heavy punches, wildly in front of her and vaguely in the direction of Lynn's torso. With that out of the way, she took a deep breath and put actual effort into standing back into the stance Lynn had attempted to get her to do, using the motion move her focus just a bit to what might have been a bruise around noon.

It wouldn't be now.

"Lynn, you're thinking too much. Feel. Feel the Force in your body, in your arms. Feel the air, and me." Her fists clinched a little tighter. "You won't get anything done if you don't hit me harder than that, and only through giving yourself over to the Force, letting it guide you, will you find that strength."

- L -

Flowing, Lynn could do. Motion, she could be. But surrendering her body to some metaphysical intuition? Yeah, she struggled with that a little bit. A Mandolorian's body was a machine, her attacks a carefully calculated series of strikes to bring death and victory. How could she read her opponent's form if she was too busy focusing on her own? How could she think steps ahead if she was thinking about inner peace, or whatever nonsense?

But the point was true, that Lynn could beat on Fabula all day and still get nothing done aside from bruising her own hands. That, and get frustrated at a lack of actual instruction. If Fabula had told her to stand or attack a specific way, it would have been easy to follow direction.

"Of COURSE I feel the air." Lynn complained, taking a half step back and switching her tight pugilist's stance into a looser, wider form. With her legs slightly apart and relaxed at the knees, her hands open in front of herself, the Mandolorian woman forced herself to calm down and take a deep breath. Yes, she was frustrated. No, it wasn't Fabula's fault that she was apparently a slow student.

She wished she had her beskar. It was much easier to feel the Force with her blades in hand, which was part of the reason she'd insisted on forgoing them. No crutches.

- F -

Fabula broke into motion like a sonic boom: loud, impossible to ignore, and without anything being there moments ago. She lurched forward in a blink, starting with a punch downwards at Lynn's forehead, another towards the center of her chest, then a quick kick from a standing spin. The whole thing took less than two seconds.

She didn't bother to recover quickly, instead setting her stance in due time. Each of her attacks came with actual power this time, to offset how much slower she'd launched them than before. She practically cut the air with the force of her blows, but hopefully it wouldn't be enough to cause severe pain to Lynn. Hopefully.

"You know the air exists because you feel it on your skin, but you don't feel it within you," Fabula's expression managed something of a tired grin. "You know that I exist because you see and hear me, but you don't feel me in front of you. You have no idea what I'm going to do before I do it."

She straightened up into a neutral stand, no form or function. "Take a moment and focus, Lynn. Use a stance that's important to you; one that your family taught you. Close your eyes and feel yourself."

Fabula practiced as she preached, pressing her hands together in a tight prayer and closing her eyes. It was trivially simple for her to feel her own body; it would've been harder for her to -stop-. "Now extend your senses into the air around you. Your eyes will deceive you. The Force will not."

- L -

All of the breathing exercises in the Universe are ill preparation when a woman comes at you with enough force to casually implode an asteroid. Lynn did her best to keep her one-ness through the first stroke, dipping her head to the side to evade it. The second wasn't so lucky, and all that Force-nonsense disappeared like so much mist as she felt her sternum crack. The impact stunned her, and delayed her reactions - Fabula's kick sent her spinning across the ground like a ragdoll, covered in dust and possibly spraining her wrist.

When she came up - which was the very second she physically could - Lynn grimaced at the pain in her chest and put a hand to it. Same as last time, just not good enough.

Just not good enough.

I may not know or understand the Force, but it has undeniable power. I can feel that power in every limb: not as a wholesome strength, but akin to the dull ache of sexual frustration or a bitter day's work. Most of that is the simple strain of taking two direct hits from a living God.

It quails against her. It hates her and loves her, and when I'm around her, It is confused. She makes me better, but she doesn't deserve what she has. Hard work should always be rewarded, as any Mandolorian knows - so why has she been handed such strength? Such power, she doesn't deserve or use well. The Force gives her might that she uses like a clumsy bludgeon, and thinks herself a warrior, and for this It has nothing but hate for her.

And that hate aches in my belly as though a furnace has been placed there. Hate gives me motivation to stand when I aught to stay down. Pride in my abilities, and resentment that she can never know about. Because I love her.

I care little for what she's saying - it's mostly nonsense. Silly things I barely understand, much less anything I can use. What I can use is the insult that lights a fire. It blazes down my spine and empowers my battered frame, lighting that furnace into a raging inferno. We are sparring - this is a test between fighters, this is training, and it is SACRED. And yet, she prays. She stops, lowers her guard, and dismisses my skill completely.

How dare she.

Our feet are in motion before we know it, legs and arms pumping in time. Although bare feet don't make much noise on soft ground, she'll hear us coming. That's fine. We want that. Maybe it might put some respect in her silly mind. We hate her, we hate her ritual and pomp. And we hate the disrespect.

But we love her. So she will be taught.

If only we had the strength.

Air attacks are clumsy, her legs lethal. Leaping into battle is ill-advised. Her hands are fast, but clenched together. We'll have a half-second to attack before they can react, and we will make use of it. She is a statue of power, with skin as hard as steel and the strength to lift buildings. So we will put it to the test.

My first strike is clumsy, testing the damage with a kidney shot. I am hurt, but my body will function. I do the unexpected, then, and claim a fistfull of the witchling's hair, so often grasped in love. With it in hand, I attempt to drive her lovely face down to my knee - and if she will not move, I will bring my knee to her with the full weight of my spinning body.

How dare she pray.

[Dark Side Points gained]

- F -

If there was nothing else in my life that I ever knew, I would know anger. I would know hatred, and fear, and resentment. They were the first things I knew, emotions that burned inside me as I crawled like a mewling child from the primordial vat of my cloning tank and awoke, formed but broken, on stone slab beneath a dead woman's castle. These little trickles of Dark power were the first things that ever gave me comfort in life; that the one who saved me from them now uses them against me must be an irony of a sort.

I can see her burning in the air, in the indescribable haze of the Force. I can feel her fire light the world around her like a bonfire, that familiar Rage that I've long since turned away. She doesn't understand what she's doing, but I'm left with my own choice in the hours that it takes for her to move: do I stop my beloved from starting down the path I dread, or do I celebrate that she has finally given into the Force?

I saved myself. She saved me. I pray only that together, we can save her as well. I let her be. I will let her thrive.

Her power comes as a bit of a surprise to me. The first attack is nothing, and my hand moves to intercept almost of its own free will. The Force provides, and moves my body before I know where to move it to. I catch her fist as my eyes snap open to meet her gaze, one final attempt to show her what I've been attempting to show her all along. Unfortunately, she doesn't seem keen on learning.

Fingers in my hair. In any softer situation, this might disable me entirely, but now it's simply something she's decided to do. She needs to feel this, just as well as every other emotion, to discover which ones are safe and which lead to dangerous paths. I allow myself to be slammed against her leg, though I wrench my face to one side in an attempt to keep her from knocking out any teeth.

My skin is the Force, a technique I have been attempting to teach her for months. The Force provides, but skin is still skin. My teeth cut into it as it slams into the side of my mouth, and when I stumble back a few feet and stand, I can feel my blood on my own tongue. My cheek is raw, very probably bruised, but this is nothing more than a speed bump. The Force provides.

Instead, I give her a stern look. I wish once more that my voice is capable of being as stern, as a mouse can rarely guide a lion. "What you've felt, now that you've awakened yourself in the Force, is something much more dangerous than anger. What you feel is the Force, but a corruption of it. It's not adrenaline that burns in your veins, but the base lust for power, the need to prove yourself."

My feet betray me but for a moment, and I quickly return to a stand. "It is good that you've felt this, Lynn. It should show you a side of yourself that you knew existed, but never wanted to consider." My hands come up, one in the other. I crack them together, the pops of my knuckles far too loud in the moment after violence. "And if you let it control you, I will always be there to stop you."

@[member="Lynn Caromed"]

 

[Lynn Caromed]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

Good. Now I've got her attention. She's carrying herself like a fighter, too. It's a start. "You are my beloved, the most treasured beauty..." I state evenly, putting a few meters between us to gather something left nearby. A bundle. From within it come two old friends, shining Mando iron won with honor and retained by flesh. Ninety total centimeters, divided between two blades. Twin extensions of our soul.

"..and you are my Cyar'ika. But when we are here, testing our skills, I am your opponent. To bow your head and whisper is not only disrespect to us as your student, but as your partner and lover." The words are harsh, but I must speak them. She uses our words, our endearments, so I will teach her our ways.

I carefully heft one of my blades, sampling it's familiar weight. The leather bound haft is more familiar to me than my own flesh, at times. With a flick of my wrist as I cross the yard to my Fabula, I toss the beskad into the air and catch the point, the handle offered to her.

"This blade is an extension of my heart. It is a part of me that can never be replaced. If you love me, take it in hand. If you trust me, wield it with pride. I'd you respect me, I will always have enough - but if you cannot understand why you wounded us so badly, drive it into our heart." I offered solemnly, as histrionic as ever. But theatrics have their place and always will.

I raise my chin slightly, deliberately exposing my throat. "You have been ours for nearly half a year, Fabula Cavataio. In our deepest heart, we think of our love as eternal. We consider you as our spouse. But if we cannot be relied on and trusted to protect and nurture you, we would prefer you kill us now, and save us both the shame."

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Sometimes it's difficult for even me to handle her mood swings. She's pulling out swords and telling me to kill her if she's weak, and all I can do is stand still looking like a confused Wookiee with a an electric shaver. I can't think of a response for several seconds. "L-..." It's pretty obvious that my words are failing me, and I can't see my own stuttering, blushing awkwardness. But I do know what I need to answer her with.

I take the sword out of her hand (carefully, so I don't cut her), and flip in the prettiest manner I can manage to hold its blade against the back of my arm. I'm not terribly worried about it hurting me; it's simply a blade, after all, and my skin is the Force. Instead of holding it to her throat, like she'd have me do, I give her something much more deadly. If she wants drama, she'll get it through a resolved stare, rather than something like a sword.

Beskad. Whatever.

"Lynn, I am attempting to embrace your culture. This doesn't mean I'm going to forsake my own ways." Carefully chosen words. I can't say "my culture," because I've never given a single bit of attention to the Dathomiri way of doing things. "If you are weak, I not kill you. I will help you be strong. If you can't protect me, then I will protect you until you can." I can't help myself but shake my head. "Weakness is not a crime. It's a temporary state that can be overcome with hard work and a steady hand."

My eyes turn on her again, much sharper this time. My grip tightens on the sword, and I move with fluid speed until my face is less than two inches from hers...and the beskad she gave me is not two inches from her throat. "But this applies only to your body. If your spirit is weak, if you give into the Darkness that I've been fighting in myself for as long as I've been alone in this galaxy, I will not be so merciful." I can feel my eyes watering, my lip trembling. But this message has to be given. "If you fall, I'll kill you. Like the rest."

I move back after a moment, letting the sword drop with a quiet thunk to the grass, my eyes dropping to follow it because I can't meet her gaze any more. Not after that. "And I expect the same courtesy." I've managed to turn a marriage proposal into a death sentence for both of us. Way to go, Fabula.
@[member="Lynn Caromed"]

 

[Lynn Caromed]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

I'm the long nights I feel coming ahead, I might have wished she had killed me rather than salting a wound. But she did not, she was only brutally honest where I had asked for brutality.

And in that moment, the unspoken truth of our relationship was no longer 'un'.

I am not strong, regardless of what experience I have - I cannot protect her when the difference between us it's the difference between a mortal and a god. In combat on her scale, I would be a liability at best. An obstacle.

Mandolorian culture does not typically subscribe to base ideas that a woman must be protected, but all Mandolorians are warriors. Spouses and siblings, friends and rivals are expected to fight along side each other as equals. In all things, equals.

Anything and everything I needed to know about how much Fabula thought of my pride and strength, I learned when she deliberately released my weapon to the ground seconds after calling me weak. Heartbeats after I explained why I was handing her a symbolic chunk of what little heart was left to me.

I can feel my features reflexively calcify and form a mask, sealing off the turmoil before she can see. Not because she might think less, or because it may hurt.

No, she has spat on my pride, stepped all over my heart, and called me weak. I am terrified to realize that, had I the power, I would most likely try and fail to claim a pound of flesh for these wasted months. I need my mask. If only to down out It's laughter.

Clearly there can be no words. I spin on my heels and walk away, back straight, plotting the most efficient course to the bed I once shared with her, and the oft-neglected armor howling with glee from the closet.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

I said something. Force dammit, I said something. I shouldn't have said anything. I should have just let my head hang low and agree with what everyone said, like I always do. Disgusting girl. Fool girl. Stupid girl. How am I going to...I've told her a trillion times that I love her, and I'd tell her a trillion more if that's what it took. But this is Lynn; She won't accept anything so frivolous. I need to beat it into her.

Why is it that every time I try to solve a problem with words, it's always revealed to me that beating it until it stops twitching s the better choice?

I take her sword, the one she just offered me, and hurl it with as much might as I can possibly manage at the side of her head. The Force grants me insight...in my anger. For the first time in...no. I don't want to think about that. The Force granted me insight. That's all I need to think about. The sword impales itself rather dramatically in the door in front of her, and that's enough to get most sane peoples' attention.

"It won't save you," I manage to call out. Call. As in, loudly. How I managed to get my voice to work, I do not know. Might have been Lynn. Might have been...no, stop thinking about it. Love is dangerous, Fabula. This is what it causes. "All it's ever done is weaken you. Strip you down on the inside, while you're capable of so much more. You have a strength in you that eclipses everything I've ever born witness to, Lynn Caromed."

I can feel my teeth digging into my lip, and my tone cracks a bit. "Even me. Always straighter than me, always more polished. More calm and contained in battle. Perfect in every way, and I can never keep up."

I don't know what I'm thinking. I wish I wasn't thinking it. I stand up properly straight, and take a deep breath, my lungs attempting to wash out my own pain. "Come fight me, Mandalorian. If you don't need the Force to defeat me, then I will not use the Force to defeat you." I can feel my vision blurring. The taint of that Rage that I've been escaping with her help - only with her help - is coming right back to the surface. I have to cut myself off, now.

"...Just come back to me, Lynn." That wasn't a call. That was a whisper. I could barely hear it. What have I even done?
@[member="Lynn Caromed"]

 

[Lynn Caromed]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

The woman who half-turns more at the sound of Fabula's voice than the short sword flung at her head has an expression that could be best described as neutral. Truth be told, it isn't so much an expression at all as it was a half-tension of the face, a robotic blankness.

Keeping that blank look, Lynn wrapped her hands around the violently returned blade, pulled it from the door, and with the gentle care of a mother withher child, lay it upon one of the chairs on the porch.

"Regardless of the circumstance, I gave this beskad to you. It was yours to discard into the mud, one supposes, but throwing it at me won't return it." Lynn reported in a flat, even tone before standing upright.

"Of you were to limit yourself completely and utterly, and fight me, you would not survive. This is simple fact, regardless of pride." Lynn added pointedly. "That you need such a devastating handicap to fight on my level speaks volumes of the difference between us - you are strong, I am weak. This is also simple fact."

"That it has taken this long to be communicated is astounding. We are not equals, only pretending to be. You are a lazy battle goddess. I am nothing outside of my armor." Lynn stated flatly. "That I ever thought we could be one and the same must have been hilarious for you. And now you're just trying to extend the joke. Haven't you had your fill?"

"Or would you like to throw my remaining blade to the ground as well?"

 

[Fabula Caromed]

"J-...joke?"

Breaking point.

With nothing left inside Fabula's fragile little spirit that she could possibly offer to Lynn, she simply fell to her knees. Her expression nothing less than shattered, she couldn't even manage to speak for several seconds. Instead, her only recourse was to stare in complete, unfathomable disbelief. Her skin crawled, but not with the Force, as she'd come to recognize. She'd forsaken that, in a wild attempt to give Lynn the fight she wanted. She was overcome with something else. Something she did not want to feel at all.

For the first time since...since her meeting with Spencer Jacobs? Before that? Fabula was feeling fear.

"It was never a joke. You're the only thing in my life that matters." Her voice sounded as broken as her spirit, a cracky whisper hounded by her own demons crawling their way up from inside of her. Nothing as physical as a set of green armor and schizophrenia, but a host of darker emotions that she'd so long kept in check with self-loathing, then with distraction, and finally with love. With those last two things torn away...what was she?

First fear. Sadness, then... "But you don't care about any of that, do you?" Fabula's eyes darkened. She fought her way back to her feet in nothing short of a shaky stomp. That stomp, however, held the kind of unadulterated power that she'd resolved not to touch again. "I'm beginning to wonder if this was a joke to you. Some kind of sick game, to play with the girl who was wandering alone in the galaxy." The ground cracked as she stood, and Fabula's eyes flashed through a full color spectrum of red hues until settling on a very uncomfortable yellow shade.

She advanced as slow and steady as a rolling apocalypse. "Do you get extra points for convincing me that you loved me? Is THAT how this works?!" Oh, she was quite loud by now. Shrieking, one might say. "And a free bonus round for sex! Why not violate the stupid virgin who doesn't know any better? Get her boozed up and frak her senseless!" Every step she took seemed to have a sort of inevitability to it. Months, maybe years of pent-up emotions breaking the dam and coming free like a cascade of Rage.

Rage. That was the word. Don't think about it? How couldn't she.
@[member="Lynn Caromed"]

 

[Lynn Caromed]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

Of all the things Lynn had anticipated from Fabula - howling laughter, maniacal grins, maybe a camera crew appearing out of the woodwork - rage hasn't been on the list. Sand why would it be? Fabula had always been kind tip the point of spineless, constantly gentle and mildly simpering.

Because she didn't expect it, Lynn's mask showed a flaw. And that flaw became a crack with Fabula's stomp-heavy approach. By the time Fabula was upon her, Lynn was wroth.

"How dare you. How dare you!" Lynn snarled, spinning on her heel to receive the coming girl-shaped train. "A minute ago, I asked you to be my wife! I've introduced you proudly to my entire family, and you know full well that- no!"

"You don't get to be indignant!" Lynn barked, bringing her finger up under Fabula's chin in a (for her) ridiculously human, absurdly organic gesture. "I get to be indignant! Me! Don't think for a moment that your eye trick and strength scare us, either!"

 

[Fabula Caromed]

It probably would have been endearing to see Lynn do something so common, but Fabula wasn't seeing much of anything right now. Rather than stop, she reached up and grabbed Lynn's hand with force. Painful force. There probably should have been bones cracking. "YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE WHAT I FEEL!!" Tears streamed down her cheeks, in stark contrast to the barking screeches coming out of her mouth.

"For just a few short months, I felt someone cared about me. Do you have any clue how that feels?" Her grip tightened. She wrenched Lynn's arm down towards the ground as she spoke. "You have a family who loves you! You have friends who care about you! I HAVE NOTHING!!" Fabula released the Mandalorian's arm, but kept stepping towards her, completely unabated.

"For once in my accursed life I felt like I had something that I could come back to. Someone who I could depend on, someone who'd love me despite what I am, what I've done, or whatever the frak else." Her eyes seemed to have forgotten how to blink. Instead, they just stared at Lynn. "And then this. THEN YOU GIVE ME THIS!!" She calmed her barking for a moment to grit her teeth and glare at Lynn's swords, back on the bench far, far away from her. "You told me once that your sword was your soul, and you offered it to me. I was breaking then, because I couldn't do the same." Her hands clenched into fists tight enough to make her palms bleed. "I don't have a soul to offer you, Lynn."
@[member="Lynn Caromed"]

 

[Lynn Caromed]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

Yep, that's a broken hand. Being single (if she survived) just got a little more sucky.

"Which is why I gave you mine, dammit!" Lynn spat angrily. "You think I didn't know?! You think I could spend every aching second being with our thinking about somebody and not see her scars?!"

"You didn't have a family, so I gave you mine! You couldn't find a future, so I offered to share mine! On a platter, I offered everything I am, and it wasn't good enough for you! I! I wasn't enough!" Lynn cradled her shattered hand to her stomach, glaring. "Not for you, not for It, not for Tiendas our anybody else. They get their jokes, the hell do they care."

"So go ahead, Fabula! Kill me! Bring the punchline! We both know you could do it as easy as flipping a switch!" Lynn sobbed bitterly. "You were the one time I got to give somebody things, instead of only taking them away, so go ahead and take my life, too! 'Here lies Lynn, ha ha ha! She wasted breath and died useless to anyone, like we knew she would'! Like my epitaph?"

 

[Fabula Caromed]

That was it. That was all she could take. Fabula pulled back her arm, rearing the most powerful punch she'd probably ever thought to perform. Leviathans had not been fought with so much force. She was nothing but Rage, and her arm screamed through the air in tandem with her own screams. There was a tense, dramatic moment, before it connected...

With the ground, as Fabula doubled over in a sniffling fit. There wasn't so much an indention on the ground. "...Lynn. You've been so much more than enough. You've been more than I could ever want...the only thing I could ever want." She might have missed because of the water in her eyes, but Fabula sank to the ground in an ungraceful lump with a similar look to before, with the sobbing and such. "Tiendas, your family...they love you so much. The only thing you haven't given them is your own love. It's written all over their faces."

She'd cycled back to sorrow. A hundred emotions, no longer under control, all of which were running around in her head like a stampede of very irate cattle. "Nothing you gave me was ever enough. It was too much. More than I'd ever deserve." Fabula ran her arm along her nose like a snotty child with a skinned knee. "I don't understand why you can't see that. You're perfect."
@[member="Lynn Caromed"]

 

[Lynn Caromed]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

"Stupid. You... Stupid, stupid woman." Lynn complained in a surprisingly candid manner lacking her usual poetry.

But actions speak louder than words. She sank to her knees as well, bopping Fabula's head with her own. "I... am... broken. Somewhere inside. I always have been, and sometimes we- I. I forget. And I can't fix It. It makes everything so damned hard! I'm broken, and they all know it. They all see."

"You... You are beautiful. You are kind, and thoughtful, and you can look at me without laughing, and have more power in one hand than I do in a dozen lives. It hates you, It loves you, It doesn't know why. I would've love them if I could, if I could be a woman like you are. But you don't even acknowledge how amazing you are! You could have any person in the galaxy come to your bed, but you threw in with a broken psycho queen. Stupid, perfect, idiotic witch."

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Stupid woman. Stupid girl.

Fabula's old mantra for keeping herself from going nuclear, that easy way of blaming everything that happened in her hellish life on herself. Mother disappeared because she was a bad daughter. She was cloned and abandoned because she was wicked in her last life. She was in constant spiritual pain because the soul attached to her body was too good for her. Stupid girl.

Her tears didn't dry, but when Fabula moved closer to Lynn, cautiously, her sobbing was less intense. "You're not broken that badly. Nothing a bone setting and a medical droid can't fix." She knew what the other woman meant, but Fabula couldn't bear to think about it. All she could do was think about how the only reason Lynn was injured right now was because she'd lost her temper. When she lost her temper, bad things happened. People got hurt. You don't want anyone to get hurt, do you? Stupid girl.

Fabs couldn't have done much to ease the other woman's pain anyway, but she was too busy getting caught up in herself and her thoughts to do that, just like always. "I'm...broken, too. I never forget it, but sometimes it's not easy to keep it hidden. I'm sorry, Lynn." She sniffled a bit pathetically, her touch infinitely soft on Lynn's tortured arm. "I'm...so sorry. I'm sorry." Stupid girl.
@[member="Lynn Caromed"]

 

[Lynn Caromed]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

"We're sorry, too." Lynn breathed, a rush of air that sounded like it aught to accompany a shot to the stomach."I wanted to protect you, but you are so much stronger than us. We want to nurture, but... You know how bad I am at it."

"But I love you, Fabula. I've wanted to be your woman, your wife for months." Lynn glanced down at her hands (hand? Hand and a half?) While frowning. "Had you the parts and I the wholeness of thought, I would be proud to mother your children." She admitted quietly.

"When we - I. When I thought you were spitting on our culture, we broke a little more. And I panicked. It panicked even more. Because I'm not sure we can live without your love anymore."

 

[Fabula Caromed]

One more time, Fabula snifflled. This time, she managed a smile as she did it, bending up to give Lynn the tiniest kiss any human being had ever given. "You'll never have to, Lynn. I'm madly head-over-heels for you." Sitting back on her heels, she looked down at the other woman's arm and frowned. "One of these days I'll understand you. Or you'll understand me. Either way, we'll stop being dangerous to each other."

The girl looked up with an expression of resolve in her eyes, like before, but more fragile. The last time she'd done that, after all, she'd wound up breaking Lynn's arm in a blind rage. "Help me? Help me understand who you are, and who...your people are." The latter really wasn't that important to her, but it was important to Lynn, and that made it important to Fabula. "Please help me be a Mandalorian, Lynn. So I can make you proud."

Somehow or another those weird things about Lynn wanting to mother Fabs' children didn't seem to be an issue.
@[member="Lynn Caromed"]

 

[Lynn Caromed]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

"The last time I tried, you served me the most devastating insult of our lives." Lynn pointed out wryly, closing her eyes in relief. And pain. Mostly pain. "We're still reeling, in a way."

Lynn sank down onto her side and laid/flopped her head into Fabula's lap. "We're already proud of you, silly thing. Sometimes afraid of you, but still proud. I just worry that I have no purpose in your life, save sexual. You are stronger than I am, just as clever, more beautiful... I don't feel useful. Or needed. At all. So we worry."

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Not to sound like the psycho girlfriend here, but when Lynn even acted like she was leaving, Fabula went into a killing rage. Somewhat of a good thing that being around does for the galaxy; no Fabula berserking. But who's counting. Certainly not her. Fabs was far too busy giving Lynn a weak-looking smile and holding up her good hand to give it a quick, soft kiss. "If we're going to be pointing out logical inconsistencies, Lynn, I'm surprised how you haven't mentioned how my wildly crusading for your approval relates you to being my parent."

God Fabula, stop trying to make jokes. You're almost as bad at it as Aleidis is. "You're needed, Lynn. I need you." Her eyes dropped down as she bit her lip, trying very hard not to remember what had just happened. "I...think you've seen what happens without you. That...that is where I was before I met you. This is where I was." Her expression finally recovered into something like a sad smile. "When you're around, I'm calm. You're my heaven, Lynn Caromed. I will never doubt your 'usefulness' to me."
@[member="Lynn Caromed"]

 

[Lynn Caromed]

@[member="Fabula Cavataio"]

Deep breath. Deal with the pain. She needs you.

"You know what we - I. What I was. Am." Lynn pointed out quietly, rolling onto her back so she could lay her head flat on Fabula's lap. Not that she could see her lady's face any better past the enormous shelf of her bosom, but it was more comfortable to lay in such a fashion. At least the fight was over, for now. At least she could relax, and bask in Fabula's quiet approval and need, and feel necessary. Sure, Fabula had broken her hand - but it was an accident, right? She really did love her, and it was kind of her own fault, right?

Ngh. Bad thoughts.

Lynn reached up, as Fabs was already holding/kissing her good hand, and cupped the Dathomiri's neck. "I think we've had enough training for this morning, my beauty." She decided quietly. "Forgive me if I take a couple of hours to recover."